


The Meaning of a Flower

by the_toadlet



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: ? - Freeform, AU, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Car Accidents, F/M, Flowers, M/M, Sortof, it's not my best
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-07
Updated: 2017-06-07
Packaged: 2018-11-10 14:23:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11128653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_toadlet/pseuds/the_toadlet
Summary: Everyone has flowers on their arm, telling about their loves until they die.Phil just happens to have... a few more than expected.





	The Meaning of a Flower

Phil first noticed the flowers spiraling up his arm in primary school. Everyone had some form of flower, but none had nearly as many of the beautiful things running up their arms.

 

“Mummy? Why do I have so many flowers on my arm?” Phil’s mother smiled down at him, the slightest bit of sadness twisting her features.

 

“It means you’ll have just that many people loving you, that’s what every flower means.” Phil’s mother had given Phil a book, just a little one, telling him what all the flowers on his arm meant.

 

Phil had grinned, a wide, toothless smile(he had knocked out his front teeth by running into a pole) and clutched the book to his chest.

 

**_-Yellow carnation; Rejection, Disdain, Disappointment-_ **

 

Phil was in secondary school when the first flower glowed brightly for a bit. It was a daffodil, high up on his arm and shining brightly. Phil bounced excitedly- he had a crush, and he didn’t know what the daffodil meant. Maybe it was because the person felt the same way as him? Phil scrambled to find his book of flower meanings. 

 

Phil cried all that night, until the flower on his arm shriveled up and died. 

 

**_-Daffodil; Unrequited love, Uncertainty-_ **

 

Phil was wary of the looks. People seemed to pity him for his flowers, thinking that someone with that many flowers would end up in a maddened state, a Loveless. Phil was nearly fifteen at the time, three more daffodils had died, and he currently had an Asphodel(the one curled around his thumb) lit up.

 

It shriveled and died when one of the Year Thirteens got hit by a car and was killed.

 

Phil didn’t care.

 

**_-Asphodel; My Regrets follow you to the Grave-_ **

 

Phil started Uni with about a quarter of his flowers dead. He barely cared anymore. The flowers weren’t a blessing, not anymore, they only meant death and pitying looks from strangers he barely knew.

 

He wore long sleeves more and more, trying to cover the roses and vines and blossoms trailing to his shoulder.

 

Phil didn’t notice when his flowers started growing bleak, the once vibrant colours fading into mere shadows.

 

It was nearly a good thing, in his eyes.

 

It was only when he finally, finally looked down while he was showing that he noticed that his flowers were only gone aside from the barest outline.

 

“Fuck! Oh, fuck fuck fuck fuck-” Phil gasped.

 

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

 

Phil scrambled to get to is phone, the towel wrapped loosely around his hips sliding off.

 

_ ‘what does it mean if my flowers went white’  _ Phil typed in with shaking fingers.

 

WebFlower, a decently respected website on the behaviours and beings of the Soul Flowers cropped up.

 

<When Soul Flowers go white, it is usually because the host has been suffering some sort of long-term mental illness. If you find yourself with white flowers, we immediately recommend going to a doctor and/or looking back on your life to see when the problem started.>

 

Phil felt like he was going to faint.

 

Mental illness?

 

**_-Love Lies Bleeding; Hopelessness-_ **

 

The doctor, a very nice lady with only two flowers twined around her wrist, diagnosed him with depression within the hour.

 

She gave him meds and sent him on his merry way, muttering about ‘nearly too late to save the flowers’.

 

Phil felt  _ awful.  _

 

How would he fix his flowers now?

 

He had to. 

 

He  _ had  _ to.

 

**_-Wormwood; Absence, Bitter Sorrow-_ **

 

Phil’s flowers slowly regained colour, Phil himself brightening up. It was his last year of Uni, another few flowers had died, and Phil was left with a diploma and a girlfriend. Phil had a purple lilac lit up along the bottom of his wrist, she had a Morning glory on her ring finger. 

 

It only took a few months before Phil came out as gay to her, her morning glory shriveled and died, ad Phil’s lilac did the same.

 

Mary, as that was her name, ran from the apartment weeping.

 

She should have known, it was nearly obvious with those damned flowers.

 

Phil spent the night sobbing and trying to cut the flowers out of his skin.

 

They just kept on blooming through the blood, and Phil eventually passed out.

 

**_-Morning Glory; Love in Vain-_ **

 

Phil woke in a hospital, an elderly nurse with a bracelet of flowers glowing around her wrist and one dead on the back of her hand tending him.

 

“Hallo, love. How are you feeling today?” She chirped at him, a soft smile crinkling her face.

 

Phil managed a soft groan.

 

“Yeah, that’s pretty common after one loses that much blood.” She smiled ruefully at him before turning back to whatever she was dealing with. “Your girlfriend, or whatever she was, found you. Said she was going back for her stuff and found you in the bath with blood down you and you completely unconscious.” 

 

An unbidden tear streaked down Phil’s face.

 

“You’ll be okay, love. You might have some scarring, but you’ll be alright.” She crooned at him, and she must’ve given him a drug because he could feel himself slipping into sleep.

 

“It’ll be okay.”

 

**_-White Clover; I Promise-_ **

 

Phil was released from the hospital after four weeks of anger and trying to rip the bandages off his arm out of sheer boredom.

 

None of the flowers had died during his extended stay, luckily, and phil was sortof looking forward to whatever the ring of roses around his wrist meant.

 

After all, roses were supposedly the most romantic of flowers.

 

**_-Black Rose; Death, Hatred, Farewell-_ **

 

It was a rainflower that lit up first, after he was out of the hospital.

 

The boy he had been crushing oh, a young man named Leo, had a honeysuckle lit up halfway up his forearm. 

 

The got together after a few dates, but within weeks, Phil was crying and the rainflower was dead.

 

Leo had a yellow rose lit up on the underside of wrist.

 

It promptly died after Phil broke up with him, and Phil was so, so very sad and disappointed.

 

**_-Marigold; Pain and Grief-_ **

 

Phil was in his mid thirties by the time three-quarters of the flowers were dead, and Phil could feel himself dying as well.

 

He only had a handful of flowers, and when your flowers run out, so do you.

 

Phil speculated that the graves, some covered in flowers and some with only a sparse few, grew the flowers of the corpse beneath them.

 

Some people could survive centuries with one flower, some weeks with an entire bouquet on their hand.

 

Phil went through his flowers too fast.

 

He couldn’t help it- he was a romantic.

 

And the flowers only added a bit of risk.

 

But, as a thirty four year old man with only some fifteen flowers spattered on his arm, he  _ had  _ to slow down.

 

He would die if he didn’t.

 

It was told some babies were born without flowers, the Loveless, and that they were either dead or driven mad by the emptiness of a Flowerless life.

 

Phil was supposed to be lucky. 

 

If he was stingy, he could live for forever.

 

But he wasn’t.

 

_ That’s  _ why people pitied him, not because he had too many flowers, but how fast he went through the flowers.

 

Phil was dying.

 

**_-Purple Violet; Daydreaming, Love between two women-_ **

 

He was in his mid sixties, down to two flowers.

 

He could nearly  _ taste  _ the death awaiting him.

 

A purple rose and a poppy.

 

Phil prayed to a god he didn’t believe in for the purple rose to keep him alive.

 

**_-Cypress; Death, Mourning, Despair, Sorrow-_ **

 

Phil’s purple rose lit up when he met eyes with a stranger, slightly(but not very) younger than him.

 

The man stood up from his table, the singular flower on the back of his hand lighting up.

 

Neither of the men saw the car.

 

The elderly man stumbling towards Phil had grey streaked brown hair, pushed to the side in a wavy fringe. He was nearly the same height as Phil, slightly stooped from age and wearing a black skirt-and-sweatshirt ensemble.

 

Phil’s heart stopped when the car came screaming down the street.

 

The man, halfway through the street, twisted and barely managed to scream before the squeal of tires, the snap of bone, and the thud of a body hitting the ground filled the air.

 

The purple rose winked out on Phil’s hand, and darkness started to seep into his vision when the poppy started to glow.

 

Except it was brighter than the usual flowers, and Phil could feel the life seeping out of him.

 

All of his flowers were gone at this point.

 

**_-Poppy(general); Eternal Sleep-_ **

**Author's Note:**

> oops
> 
> it's shitty i know
> 
> HERES A LINK TO THE WIKI PAGE IF YOU WANNA LOOK AT MORE FLOWER MEANINGS i found it really interesting
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_symbolism
> 
> MERRY CHRISTMAS


End file.
